Woman Beats 10-Year-Old Maid To Death In Lagos

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested a middle-aged woman, Linda Alapa, for allegedly beating her 10-year-old housemaid, Joy Mbafan, to death within the suburb of Bolanle Oduniyi Street, Okegbegun, in the Ikorodu area of the state.

The suspect, it was learnt, was beating the victim in the earlier hours of last Monday (3:00am) when she passed out and died afterwards.

The Punch gathered that at the Ikorodu General Hospital morgue where she had gone to deposit Mbafan’s corpse, a doctor on duty was said to have noticed marks of violence on the body and alerted the police at the Sagamu Road Division.

Speaking on the incident after interrogation, a police source said Alapa admitted to beating the girl, even as the source said that she would be charged with murder.

The police source said: “She wanted to absolve herself of the death of the victim, but for the doctor on duty who raised the alarm after a close examination and she was arrested. There are marks of violence on the body of the deceased and she did not deny beating her.”

Also lending voice on the matter, a neighbour of the suspect said Alapa did not only beat the girl but also starved her of food.

She said: “Around 3am on the day the girl died, I heard her crying as the woman (Alapa) flogged her. I woke up my husband to intervene. He said he was tired of the woman’s insults. After a while, she stopped crying.

“It was when I came back from work that afternoon that I saw a crowd on our premises in tears. They said Joy (Mbafan) was dead. The woman’s husband was not at home that day. It was the landlord that told him about the incident on the telephone.”

The landlord and Alapa’s husband were not around when our correspondent visited the residence on Wednesday. The Alapas’ apartment was locked.

When contacted, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, in a text message, said, “I confirm the case. The suspect is under investigation while the corpse has been deposited in a morgue for autopsy.”